


Lapidot Drabble Collection

by OnyxReed



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Drabbles, Fluff, Human, Math and Science Metaphors, Other, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 18:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3987598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxReed/pseuds/OnyxReed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of drabbles that were requested of me over a few days; I put the request at the top of each drabble. All Lapidot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Slip of the Hand

**Author's Note:**

> All prompts were sent in anonymously unless otherwise indicated.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angsty Lapidot fic where lapis cracks her gem 0u0  
> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/116243216161/angsty-lapidot-fic-where-lapis-cracks-her-gem-0u0

“I can’t believe you!”

In her frustration, Peridot had Lapis cornered, backed into the wall of her room. They both knew that Lapis could escape if she wished, but Peridot’s larger frame and Lapis’s non-violence made it somewhat easy to keep the gem in place.

Nevertheless, Lapis put her hands on her hips, grunting. “You are overreacting!” she snapped. “I trip over one of your pesky little plug robonoids, and you break into an episode.”

“That wasn’t just any robonoid, and you know that!”

“Just make another one, you little-”

Slam!

With her eyes scrunched closed, Peridot hardly knew what came over her. All that she knew was that all ten of her fingers grasped against Lapis’s shoulders, and she pushed. Hard.

Crack!

Lapis had underestimated her partner’s strength. Her breath was taken out of her, as if the push had been to her gut, as a piercing pain wracked through her body. She let out a piercing scream as her back slammed against the wall, closing her eyes, lest they water.

Both of them opened their eyes. Peridot’s pupils dilated when she saw that Lapis’s were sliced in two by a fine line of grey.

“Lapis…”

The gem in question sputtered, shaking Peridot’s fingers off of her and forcing herself off of the wall. She ran a hand over her gem, the newly-formed crack running across the top of the teardrop shape.

“Peridot… you!”

“I’m sorry, Lapis, I don’t know what came ov-”

“You idiot!”

Lapis’s limbs shook as lethargy replaced pain. She was beyond angry, but she had no energy with which to express it. The crack was like a leak through which her water ran out of her body in a persistent drip.

Peridot tried to place a hand on her shoulder, but Lapis pushed it away, the gem’s strength still capable of overpowering the weak technician.

“Go away.”

“You healed it once, right? There’s no reason why you can’t do it again.”

“Go. Away.”

Peridot backed away, leaving her own room as she muttered bits of self-deprecation. Her fingers clumped into fists at her side, and Lapis could hear the strong thump of her punching the wall outside.

Lapis spent the remainder of the day day licking her hand and rubbing it on her back in a futile attempt at replicating his magic.


	2. A Complex Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt where they try to hold hands but are struggling to get it right 'cause peri's hands are weird?

“The sunset is lovely on this planet, isn’t it?”

The sand of Beach City felt odd against Peridot’s legs. It was itchy, unlike the sleek finish of the modified suit that she almost always wore. Instead, with the casual clothing that Steven had insisted she wear for their “beach party” that consisted of a short pair of shorts and a racerback top, her skin made an uncomfortable amount of contact with the heat and itch of Earth.

“It’s certainly… hot.”

Lapis rolled her eyes, scooting a bit closer to Peridot. “Listen, I know that you’re still shellshocked, but try to enjoy yourself.”

Peridot flushed slightly. “If I were not trying to enjoy myself, I wouldn’t have participated in this human social gathering.”

“That’s true.”

Peridot shrugged, looking back out to the horizon, straining her eyes against the orange-and-pink rays of the Earth sun.

“You really like this planet, don’t you?” she mused with a slight hint of distaste in her voice.

“Not… particularly,” Lapis admitted, “but we either remain here or die on a gem-controlled planet, so we might as well try to find the positives.”

Peridot looked at Lapis for a long time. Only when the other rose her brow in question did the technician return her gaze to the horizon.

There was a long pause, one in which the waves of the ocean - vast in comparison to the depleted water reserves of Homeworld - crashed against the shore, releasing their smell and their sound into the air. After a few moments, Peridot looked in the opposite direction, muttering something audibly.

“What was that?” Lapis asked, blinking.

Peridot shrugged, turning back around. “I’ve found my positive.”

Lapis grinned, brushing her hand against Peridot’s arm with a clear objective. “I have, too.” She opened up her hand once she reached Peridot’s wrist, the artificer’s muscles clenching as Lapis’s fingers swept against where her arm ended.

“Are you okay?” Lapis halted her advance, hovering her hand over the end of Peridot’s arm.

“Oh, yes,” Peridot assured. “Just a bit… ah, sensitive there.”

“Can I..?” Lapis gestured towards Peridot’s fingers.

“Yes.” Peridot’s agreement came with a dark green blush.

Lapis nodded as she started to work her fingers against Peridot’s with the clear objective of intertwining them. Peridot offered her assistance, but with the odd wiggling of her fingers and no palm upon which to bear, it was clear that they were having a bit of difficulty.

“Wait… hold on…”

“Just a sec…”

Peridot blinked as Lapis grasped her smallest digit with her whole hand. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“It’s not, but otherwise, my palm would just be in mid-air.”

Peridot rose her other four fingers. “So what do I…?”

“Uhm, just wrap them around like…”

Peridot understood, wrapping her other four fingers around Lapis’s hands: None of them were quite long enough to make it complete, only forming small arches around the blue hand.

“This is odd,” Peridot decided.

Lapis chuckled, giving Peridot’s digit a slight squeeze. The technician winced.

“Oh, sorry! Sensitive. Right.”

She nodded, running one of her extraneous digits up and down Lapis’s wrist. “We’ll learn.”

“Does that mean that there’s a future involved?”

Peridot shrugged, scooting a bit closer to Lapis. “We only have each other, after all. We will be forced to adapt.”


	3. Advancements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapidot fic drabble: On the wiki it says that Lapis is afraid of Peridot. Maybe you could play around with that as to why that is.  
> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/116422821475/lapidot-fic-drabble-on-the-wiki-it-says-that

“I don’t understand!”

Lapis stood her ground, every muscle in her body trembling. Her stance was obviously defensive: Her legs were spread out with both knees bent, and she threw both of her arms in front of herself with hands nearly balled into fists. Her eyes were fixated upon the glowing green thing that her captor had summoned up in front of her. Peridot didn’t need anyone to clarify this behavior for her:

Lapis was terrified.

“What don’t you understand? This is incredibly straight-forward,” replied Peridot in a cool, collected voice, puffing up her chest. She was used to the role of the subordinate, so she was not at all above manipulating fear to, for once, gain the upper hand.

Lapis growled in slight frustration, motioning wildly with her hands. “All of this! I… I have been off-planet for longer than you have been made. I was a leader among our people. Why won’t you leave me be?”

Peridot rolled her eyes underneath her visor and groaned, fully aware that Lapis could see every inch of the condescension on her countenance. “Are you that naive? Did you really believe that you could just fly back to Homeworld without any announcement, any schedule, any rank?” Peridot continued to etch away at the touchpad in front of her, only adding to Lapis’s anxiety.

“Yes, I did! That is exactly what I thought!” Lapis retorted defensively.

“Pathetic. What else can I say?” Peridot let out a disgruntled sigh, tapping the upper right hand corner of the touchpad, causing it to dissipate with a pop. Her fingers returned to their spots on her right hand.

“Times have changed.”

Lapis nodded frantically, slightly relieved that the thing was gone. However, the odd screen was the least of her worries. The buzzing of her cell that hurt her when she touched it, the energy-imbued weapons that threatened to tear her apart, the numerous technological modifications that made up Peridot’s suit - they all made up the unknown. Lapis was a powerful gem, and that human’s magic had invigorated her with the strength to crack this feeble artificer with the wave of a hand. 

Obviously, it wasn’t Peridot that she was afraid of. It was everything that Peridot embodied, every modification, every jolt of electricity, every wire that connected to a screen that separated gems from each other, every inch of “progress.”

She was afraid of her own home.

“You’ll be expected to stay in my custody until we can get you sorted out. If you want this to go smoothly, don’t cause any trouble.”

Lapis would’ve crushed someone for speaking to her with such arrogance in the past. Now, she only offered a few short nods and a feeble “Yes, ma’am.”

Peridot let out a short sigh as she removed the pronged tool with which she could disrupt the energy-powered cell wall. “Just call me Peridot.”

Lapis’s agreement was muddled by the sharp static-like sound of the cell being opened and closed again in swift succession. Her blue hue was blurred by the constant stream of green.


	4. Draw a Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lapidot starbucks barista au??? i just realized that's basically a coffee shop au but i'm sitting in my school's starbucks rn so [shrugs emoji] (sent by tumblr user crystalsoulgems)  
> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/116597651922/lapidot-starbucks-barista-au-i-just-realized

With blue bob-like hair made somewhat unkempt by her Starbucks visor and form concealed by the green, cream-stained apron, Lapis knew that she wasn’t particularly attractive in her uniform. She could only hope that the little extra dab of makeup added the much-needed flair to her less-than-appealing work attire. After all, that cute regular customer was back, and she would have to be completely distracted to not notice the glances that she kept throwing at her.

Lapis had played her cards perfectly: Once Peridot (Lapis learned her name by reading the name tag fastened to, presumably, her work suit - a collared green shirt tucked into khaki pants.) ordered her usual vanilla latte, Lapis assured her that she would bring it out to her personally.

Peridot rose a brow, slightly perplexed by the change in pace, but she nodded. “Thank you,” she said after a slight pause, expression as stern as ever but with a glimmer of interest in her emerald eyes.

Lapis had made her latte special. Usually, the haphazard college student went off the cuff with respect to measurements. She was a great barista, and she knew it. However, with one last glance at Peridot as she opened the lid of her laptop at her usual seat, Lapis knew that it had to be perfect.

Exactly one squirt of vanilla extract. Leave two centimeters - no more and no less - for cream and sugar. Wait, Peridot never puts cream nor sugar into her coffee. Scratch that; add more coffee. Add a small bit of vanilla to counter that. Stir. Let it cool for a moment.

Write her phone number on the cup.

Draw a heart.

Lapis brought Peridot her latte as promised, both sporting small hints of red on their cheeks.

\--

The next day, Lapis came into work with dark circles under her eyes that her light makeup could not conceal. None of her coworkers seemed to notice her fatigue, though, as her face was marked with a large grin.

“What’s up with you?” one of them finally asked as she pulled her thick dyed-white hair into a tight ponytail.

Lapis shrugged, noticing Peridot coming in out of the corner of her eye right on time. As usual, they exchanged glances, but their eyes lingered on each other before Peridot drew away, her stone-cold visage broken by a blush.

Lapis’s coworker seemed to notice, and her lips curled into a smirk. Although she noticed this change, Lapis, at least for now, had plausible deniability.

“No reason.”

When the same coworker saw her exchange pecks on the cheek with the mysterious customer, all deniability vanished.


	5. When the Glass Shatters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapidot prompt? If you still do these that is: Peridot comforting Lapis, when she decides to tell her about her life till now.  
> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/117052447711/lapidot-prompt-if-you-still-do-these-that-is

Peridot was alerted to the harsh sound of shattering glass.

With a slight gasp of surprise, the green gem tried to collect the similarly-broken pieces of her composure as she scrambled for her gem destabilizer. Her mind jumped to the worst of conclusions as she rushed out of the control bridge and to the source of the sound.

She held her destabilizer out in front of her, both prongs pointing forward, with a slightly-shaky grip. The door to the source of the sound was shut. Who could possibly think to sneak around in her ship while making such a ruckus? Then cornering themselves in one room?

The faint sounds of weeping could be heard from the other side of the door. Peridot put two and two together.

With a click, she dismissed her destabilizer back into its compartment on her suit, gasping once more. However, this time, it was a slow inhale, preparing herself for what she was sure to see on the other side.

The door swung open. Lapis Lazuli, with part of her hair pushed in an awkward clump against the wall, slumped in a half-sit-half-kneel, picking the small shards of glass from her hand. Above her, the fractured remains of the mirror above her threatened to rain upon her sunken form.

“…What are you doing?”

Peridot stood in awe, only capable of asking the terse question with confusion, rather than sympathy or sadness, in her voice. The water gem didn’t appear particularly surprised to see her partner nor to hear the lack of emotion in her voice.

She huffed. “Do I need to describe this to you?” Lapis snapped, furrowing her eyebrows tightly. With a sniffle, the apparent aggression on her face became less believable.

“I… I’m sorry.”

“Sure.” Lapis shrugged, slumping back against the wall as she continued to clean her hand of the glass shards, occasionally grimacing in pain.

Peridot took a few apprehensive steps closer, closing the door behind her. After a moment, she collected herself enough to say something else.

“Why did you do this to yourself?”

Judging by the scrunching of her face, Lapis seemed to be going for aggression once more. Peridot braced herself. However, the technician relaxed slightly once Lapis let out a long sigh.

“I’ve pushed this day back for too long. I… need to tell you something.”

Peridot nodded with a slight noise in the back of her throat as she moved closer to Lapis. At the gesture of the other’s head, Peridot sat on a spot that was relatively untarnished by tiny fragments of the ex-mirror.

Lapis sniffled, scrunching her injured hand and sucking in her breath at the pain.

“Don’t move it. You will only irritate what shards remain,” Peridot instructed.

“I know. I just.., listen for a bit.”

The artificer nodded once, crossing her legs as Lapis drew slightly closer.

“You will likely respond best to blunt exclamations of the truth,” the blue gem decided, looking at Peridot in the eyes and ensuring that the technician’s attention, as always, was focused in on her.

“I did not fly in from a lost deep space mission. I came from Earth.”

Peridot blinked, trying as best she could to dismiss the growing bout of frustration in her gut. Earth? Really? After she had been stumbling over Earth as if it were a crack in her road to advancement, a gem with knowledge of Earth presented herself right under her nose for all this time? Was she a Kindergarten gem? Or, she couldn’t be…

“Go on,” she replied, her voice tact and soft.

“I was on Earth for a massive amount of time. Centuries. At least two thousand years. I couldn’t exactly count the time.”

Lapis began to shake slightly; whether from fear, anger, or sadness, Peridot could not tell. The only thing she could do is to wrap her arm around the green gem, pulling her closer as she continued to tell her story.

“During the Civil War - Were you made yet?”

“No.”

“Right, well, I fought to survive. You probably know how brutal the fighting was. So many gems were shattered out of cold blood, just for vapid ideas. It was silly, staining that planet with the dust of our bodies.”

Peridot looked visibly disturbed, if only by the slight wrinkling of her nose. Lapis sniffled, resting her head against the hard panel covering the other gem’s chest.

“I took no sides, and for that, I was punished. They forced me back into my gem and trapped me… trapped me in…”

The technician held Lapis close, her face unmoving but her stomach churning as the need to sympathize clashed with her natural ineptitude for compassion. She projected this confusion in her lack of response. “Trapped you in what?”

“Isn’t it obvious? A mirror! I was trapped in a mirror for all that time!” The last vestige of Lapis’s control slipped from her fingers. She curled herself into Peridot’s lap, pressing against the skin of her shoulder as she wept. Her form shriveled again as if the walls around her were forcing her inwards.

Peridot stared at her partner with disbelief, running her fingers along the other’s back and outlining the shape of her gem. “I’m… sorry, Lapis. I should have the mirrors of this vessel removed right away.”

Lapis shook her head, trying and failing to put herself back together. Peridot held onto her close; the pieces of her partner could slip away at any moment if she did not secure them.

After all, in her hands was a wealth of knowledge. The fragments of her partner surely held the lost pieces of the gem’s memory of Planet Earth.

Perhaps equally importantly, Peridot could not shake the odd knot in her stomach that forced her to stay, one that made her believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she needed to feel something.

As if it were a command issued from a higher-up, Peridot lowered her head onto Lapis’s shoulder, the strange sensations inside her reaching the boiling point that necessitated action.

“Let it out,” Peridot whispered into Lapis’s shoulder. It seemed as if the water gem was a few steps ahead of her, clinging onto the artificer like her life depended on it.

“Can you finish?”

Lapis created a bit of space between herself and Peridot, still curled against her chest but capable of coherently speaking once again. She grasped onto green fingers as she continued on, occasionally lapsing back into the fragments around her. Every time, Peridot would repeat her movements methodically, holding the gem closer and whispering unnecessary, yet comforting, thoughts into her ears.

Together, they put the pieces of Lapis Lazuli back together again.


	6. What's Your Sine?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one wasn't requested of me at all - I was just really feeling some college AU Peridot doing what she does best.
> 
> Or, perhaps, what she does worst.
> 
> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/117966506146/whats-your-sine

The worst thing about studying ahead was that, once the teacher actually got to the material, it made for an incredibly-boring day.

That realization hit Peridot every day in calculus. She was clearly advanced in the subject, as shown by her near-perfect papers and profound interest in mathematics. However, course requirements were course requirements, and that meant that she was forced into Calculus I in her first semester of higher education.

As the professor rapidly lectured the class on the chain rule, something that, by this point, she knew as well as anything, Peridot’s eyes panned around the rest of the room. She garnered a bit of amusement from everybody writing quickly enough to set their notebooks on fire - How hard can this material be?

“Hey, Peridot!”

She blinked, glancing to her left to the sharp, whispering voice that summoned her.

“Didn’t we learn about this last year?” Lapis asked, clearly having taken only a few notes. The 

Peridot made a noise in the back of her throat as she nodded subtly. “Yes. Briefly, if I do recall, at the end of the year.”

Lapis let out a sigh of relief, pausing her writing and opting to listen to the professor uninterrupted by note-taking. It didn’t take too long for her listening to be interrupted. After all, if they both knew the material, then what harm could a bit of diversion do?

After both parties turned around to resume paying what little attention they cared to give to the too-fast professor, Peridot, rather quickly, grew bored once more. She glanced to her left; watching the other students furiously note-take wasn’t nearly as interesting, nor as cute, as seeing Lapis doodle little swirls and waves on the margins of her paper.

“Lapis!” whispered Peridot brusquely.

Before any questions could be asked on the blue-haired student’s end, Peridot slid a neatly-folded piece of paper to her.

Lapis knit her brows in question, but the other had already diverted her vision back to the professor. She listened to the old calculus lecture with an interest that she had never displayed in this class before. As she heard Lapis opening the paper, her cheeks darkened considerably.

“I wish I could be your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves.”

As Peridot pretended to brush it off (As things were progressing, she was really only “blushing” it off.), Lapis put a hand in front of her mouth as she prevented herself from laughing rather loudly. 

As the professor continued to drone on, Lapis abandoned her listening efforts entirely. Incapable of disposing of the note from the back of her mind, she thought on the subject. She knew Peridot fairly well; was that pick-up actually serious? It was certainly a ridiculous, cheesy, horrendously-nerdy line, but could Peridot employ something better if given actual interest in wooing someone?

Probably not, Lapis decided. In her mind, there was a serious possibility that the note was not to be taken lightly.

She glanced over briefly. Peridot’s face was still stained red rather clearly. It was about time to exacerbate that.

She passed the paper back to the other student, neatly folded along Peridot’s creases.

“My love for you is the exponential function. It grows without limits.”

Lapis hoped that she picked the really-quickly-growing function and not the really-slowly-growing function. Judging by the fidgeting that she saw in her peripheral vision, she got that one right.

Peridot was now determined; this activity - She hadn’t decided if it were terribly serious yet, even though she was painfully aware of her feelings towards Lapis Lazuli. - had enthralled her more than any application of the chain rule. Within the next two minutes, the paper returned to Lapis once again.

“9x - 7i > 3(3x - 7u)”

After averting her gaze immediately, Peridot scanned back towards Lapis just enough to notice the confused look on her face.

“Solve it,” she hinted under her breath.

“9x - 7i > 9x - 21u”

“-7i > -21u”

“-i > -3u”

“i 


End file.
